It's that time of the year again...

 The one where we start wondering where we put the wrapping paper we bought in the January sales, where all the excess Chriatmas cards are...

(Istock via pinterest)

and

Eagerly await all the Christmas stories due out—or already out.

 (couldn't find a non specific Christmas book thingy...)

Over the last three years the lovely Cassie O'brien and I have brought out three Christmas books—so far.

You can find them all in ebook and paperback on Amazon                            https://amzn.to/405tb8BNow it's time for us to sayWhat's next...?

and then say...Watch this space...

On rediscovering somewhere

 Not a very inspiring title is it?

Sorry. 

Blame lack of sleep... The rain.. That it's almost November...The...

Okay, I blame me. The culprit. I just couldn't come up with anything better.

Sorry...

(I was trying to find a suitable icon or something here, but nothing grabbed me...in any way)

However, I digress (I love that word no idea why)

I've spent this last week in Rutland, in the English Midlands. The smallest county, in England, with the largest reservoir, Rutland Water. That's the church they had to raise to save it when the valley was flooded. Normanton.

It also has the longest brick built viaduct in the UK. Harringworth Viaduct. You can just see some of it in the background of the picture.

(source pinterest)

I went with a friend, just us two, no partners and lots of books. Which ws just as well when we got hit with the storm.

But before that we visited all over the county—and to bits outwith it. 

It took me back several decades. To places I visited to visit as a child, and then revisited twenty years later with my husband.

And things I've never seen before

(monument at Rutland Water)

And oh boy did the memories flood back. Where I'd paddled, where I'd fallen off a horse and sprained my ankle. Where my dad and I used to cycle to, go for a walk and watch the birds flying around. (And hide our jam sandwiches from them)

Stately homes and thatched cottages. 

Chocolate box charm and industrial terraces.

Such a lot to see. And rediscover.

It gave me ideas. 

Best off all,  I spent a week with a friend and chilled.

Now some of those ideas and memories are about to help with my next book.

I wonder if anyone can guess what it's about?

Happy Reading,

love Raven xxx

Covers, and clever cover artists. Plus, catch ups, choclate biscuits and clever clogs who are 'always' correct'

 Or some such thing...

I admit this blog is late because I am not a clever clogs, anything but. 

Why do you (or do you not) ask?

Well, it's like this.

Last Sunday I was away with a mate. girls only, no husbands lets put the world to right few (ie each chocolate biscuits and grumble) days. So I sorted out a blog—or so I thought—scheduled it.

You've got it...I didn't.

So here we are

This was the beginning of the blog. Which now as it is late very very late...I've amended.

Over the years I've been lucky enough to have been published, I've been very fortunate to have been given some amazing covers. Every cover artist has gone the extra mile to try and make sure the cover is suitable for the story. 

Not easy when I do tend at times to only give a vague description of how my characters look. After being told once, very firmly, that the man on the cover looked nothing like a reader envisaged him from my description in the book, I tend to stick to things like basic physique (ie NO man boobs) hair colour, curvy etc etc. Nothing too definite (apart from the lack of man boobs) 

This cover by Emmy Ellis is one of those covers where all I said was a red distinctive dress, not of the norm, and she came up with this! Absolutely perfect. Emmy had created me ( and others) some brilliant covers over the years.)

https://www.totallybound.com/book/the-earl-and-the-courtesan-print (and Ebook)

Apart from my Totally Bound covers, Emmy has also created the covers for and edited the Christmas anthologies Cassie O'Brien and I bring out each year. Look out for the next one, A Wonderful Christmastime, very soon. I haven't got that cover yet of course but...

My first cover artist was also fabulous. Victoria Miller created most of the covers for the books I wrote for the now sadly defunct and much missed Breathless Press

As the books are mainly out of print (though some have now been rereleased elsewhere) I can't show you them easily but I thought Victoria wouldn't mind if I showed you one of them...

We both loved this cover because it was at the time very different from the normal Regency cover.

Then there's Jay Aheer who did most of my Evernight Publishing covers and like Victoria and Emmy always managed to work out exactly what's needed

This is a Dark Isle book written by me as Kera Faire and she's captured the mystique perfectly.

Amy Coveney did the covers for the Katy Lilley, Devon trilogy that is not available at the moment—until I work out how to put them on Amazon myself (I'm not the most tech savvy person in the world) I need to learn, not only because I'd like more people to be able to read them, but also becasue the covers are amazing and yes capture the spirit of the books.

There has been more artists of course. Kelly Martin for the covers for The Romansa Castle series

Erin Dameron-Hill for the Scots and the Sassenachs

I could go one and on, but I'd be sure to miss someone so i'll just say that cover artists are as essential os editors. In different ways of course, but just as bad editing can put a reader off so can an indifferent or irrelevant cover.

So than you cover artists. Like I said the other week, my books would be nowhere as appealing without then and editors.

I must add as well, for me, publishers. I've still to dip my toes in alone as a self publisher writer. Thanks to Cassie sorting out joint books out, I've not needed to but I must try...

(All my books that are still published you can find on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B00694RHJI

and publishers websites)

Oh and in case you wonder where the always correct Clever Clogs bit comes in...

ask anyone about my bugbear...Whisky and whiskey

Scotch had no E 

(courtesy of Pinterest, our bottle is mainly empty)

and on that note,

Happy Reading,

love Raven xxx

Not Food for the mouth but...

 Food for thought...

This was going to be once more a post about amazing gluten free fish and chips. This time from Deep Blue in Brandesburton, East Yorkshire. 

(source, pinterest.)

 ~I ate mine~

Best I've ever had, and that includes those from the fish and chip shop voted best in Britain. (Sorry to them)

But then I noticed one  of my old (not in age) editors celebrating how many years she'd been doing the job and it brought me up short.

 How often does anyone who is not an author realise just how important those people are?

Our editors are our extra eyes and ears. They are an extension of how our minds work. They can see what we mean and more importantly what we do not mean. Save our sanity, (or story)

I might not speak for everyone, but I wouldn't feel happy putting a book out without it being edited. Properly edited. I'm not bad at grammar, but not always au fait on what's needed. And when I've written something, and I read it over, I 'read' what I know should be there and not necessarily is.

That's when my editors come in.

(source pinterest)

Now, in general, I've been incredibly lucky with each and every editor I've had. There's only been one who I didn't get on with. The one who told me if I wanted E in Scottish  whisky it would be seen as a typo. Anyone whose read any of my blogs know why that is a big no no for Scotch.  She then told me if I insisted to use the UK spelling (er what???) then I shouldn't write for a non-UK publisher!

(rant over)

Luckily My publisher didn't agree.

And I changed editors. 

Of course, over the years there has been quite a few and I'm not going to name names. In case I miss anyone.

But to each and every person, whose name is in in one of my books, as 'editor', thank you.

You are one of the reasons I keep on writing.

(Source, pinterest)

You, my readers are the other.

Happy Reading,

love Raven xxx   

A beer festival where?

You may well ask.

In a church. 

To support the parish

And I forgot to take any pictures. 

(so here's some beer my lovely husband drank earlier this year)

(and some wine)

We have friends who organise this on behalf of the church and so far have never been able to attend. This year we were determined to go.

Only one snag. No drinking and driving. Which was a bit of a problem as we live about an hour and a half drive away.

I nobly said I'd forgo my glass of wine—I knew there was no gluten free beer this year—but I wasn't driving home late at night, in the dark. (Tiredness not being a wuss).  

So we got self catering accommodation and stayed over. Definitely a good thing to do.

I drank wine, the lovely husband got to chose from an excellent selection of beer, and we had a chance to catch up with friends.

All in a church. 

What a great idea.

( just becasue)

And on that note, having spent a lovely three days away, I'm off back to Regency times to see how my hero and heroine are going to spend Christmas.

I do hope they let me in on the secret.

Happy reading,

love Raven xxx

who has the grapes?

 It's a not so well known fact that I love seedless grapes and hate ones with pips with a vengeance.

I mean you bite into them and wonder if you've broken a filling. 

Oh not so bad as an unexpected nut or bit of toffee but I mean, really a hard pip-filled grape It's just not on. I want to savour it, not check it for teeth chipping hazards.

Which got me thinking about other food hazards...when you get to 'a certain age'. 

Food, treats—okay sweets—chocolate— coleslaw.

Hold on you say. Coleslaw? Not very likely is it?

Oh yes it is... (No need to do the pantomime chorus, the lovely husband and I have been there got the t-shirt and so on.. because YES it is.

Which is not something I want to contemplate as last week I had to have a healthy tooth out.

Because I'd cracked it straight down the middle.

On coleslaw.

I kid you not. Crunchy coleslaw and a bit of the cabbage was hard enough for me to have to say bye bye to a tooth. Just call me gappy.

I'm lucky I have a fabulous dentist who made the whole extraction relatively painless. (Thank you Dr Kath). A wee bit of tugging and one tiny ouch moment as one of the injections went into my palate. The rest was okay bite in this wedge of sterile cloth to stop the bleeding, don't eat or rink anything hot, read this information leaflet and you will have an achy jaw. And if you need to, ring me.

And I headed home to contemplate lukewarm soup half cold tea and do not use a straw, I realised that actually I'm darned lucky. It was a tooth, yes, but only one.

and I got into see my dentist fast.

In the grand scheme of things I would never have thought coleslaw could be a culprit to deprive me of a tooth.

Now a seed or ten in a grape...?

Luckily mine are seedless.

Plus the chocolate is soft, the biscuits dunkable and the sore mouth is getting better.

I hope you all have a good (and extraction-less week)

Happy reading,

love Raven xxx

All pics courtesy of pinterest

when the blog is nowhere to be seen...

 But when you do find it...

What's going on? Why is it...

Sulking...

Moaning...

Ignoring me...

In fact being a right you know what in the you know what!

There is one important question in all of this. 

Why?

Why have I and the blog been missing?

Okay time to fess up.

It was life...just one of those things.

I've been on holiday. And for once I can say without a word of a lie, a lot of the places in the North West of Scotland (and on Lewis and Harris) had no wifi and very indifferent coverage. In the end after tying to get online a couple of times and , i accepted that it was going to be little and not very often, and there wouldn't be a blog or an awful of of chat from me.

I did get a couple of chats in and a few photos, but I went back to the past and remembered our fist computer, bfore we even had wifi. Putting in several dozen cards to get on so I could write and having to do it every time... every flipping time.

In some ways it was nice not to have to think, ah check emails or whatever. Until of course I did get on and found 324 emails to check. Of which 289 weren't relevant of course.

It was very good to sit back and enjoy the surroundings. Sniff the daisies (or the seaweed) check out the history and find some gluten free haggis. That was a great big yee haa moment.

But, food drink and scenery apart, it got me wondering, how things have changed in my lifetime. 

Now I guess we (or I) take if for granted I can log on, check in, chat, write or whatever without any problems. Share our photos our grips ad check facts and hunt for information. All at the touch of a button.

Whereas for three weeks I was mainly making notes on what I needed to check...

Some things were amusing. Like using a certain on line map that couldn't decide where I was. Out came the paper mapbook. That worked.

Some things weren't. I have edits. I got the email just as we were sbout to drive. I made a note to download them as soon as we arrived at our next destination. 

*Ironic Laugh*

This was a beautiful place. Mega scenery, lovely accommodation. and a wee note.

 'Wifi is very slow, sorry but that because you are here, in the beautiful countryside, with stunning views and lots of things to do.'

Point taken. It really was. 

So I decided I was going to take the opportunities given to me. My editor said don't worry about your edits until you get home (half way through then now)  My fb group told me to enjoy myself (I did) and my notebook was rapidly filled with ideas.

I wrote the first 5K of one of my Christmas stories, went for walks, beverages and lunches out, and enjoyed the scenery.

Now I'm back home and playing catch up.

But you know? It was all worth it. I don't want to go back to how life was twenty or thirty years ago (though I'd quite like to have my ability to jog a bit back ;) ). I mean I'm a real library fan, and the reference section has always been my friend. Sadly thats not a lot of help when the nearest library is 30 miles away and the library van comes once a month and you've missed it by a day.

And to end this edition of Raven's Ramblings... here's some cows on the beach in Harris.

have a great week,

happy reading ( or rambling)

love Raven xx